Interview: Anatoly Filatov�us f1 visa slots for fall 202439;s $2.5M Poker Haul Nets GPI Player of the Month Award

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Table Of Contents

• Anatoly Filatov March 2025 GPI Scorecard
• Poker Origins
• $2.5 Million Haul in Jeju
• Watch the Full Interview

Anatoly Filatov is no stranger to success at the poker table, but even for a player with his resume, March 2025 was special.

Filatov racked up four cashes at the Triton Super High Roller Series Jeju, including a career-best score of $1.88 million in the $25K WPT Global Slam. It was his first live tournament win in over five years and propelled him to a $2.5 million haul in South Korea.

The Russian pro racked up 1,261.83 GPI points in March to claim the Global Poker Index (GPI) Player of the Month honors. It was a tightly contested race in which less than 100 points separated the top five. He finished ahead of Ben Tollerene, Biao Ding, Alex Foxen, and Daniel Negreanu.

Anatoly Filatov March 2025 GPI Scorecard

Event	Finish	Prize	GPI Points
$25K WPT Global Slam	1/389	$1,882,000	624.22
$100K Triton Main Event	11/285	$480,000	259.06
$50K NLHE 7-Handed	28/215	$89,000	175.88
$30K NLHE 8-Handed	20/252	$81,500	202.67

Following his GPI Player of the Month win, PokerNewscaught up with Filatov to get an inside look into his poker journey.

Poker Origins

As a teenager, Filatov envisioned a conventional future, working a steady 9-to-5 job at a major company, the kind of path his university studies in computer science seemed to naturally lead to. But like many of poker’s modern stars, he stumbled upon the game during his degree, and what followed was a butterfly effect he never could have predicted.

Filatov started playing at the bottom of the poker ladder, playing micro-stakes cash games and tournaments. Shows like High Stakes Pokerand deep diving into strategy articles kept him hooked.

"I was obsessed with the game and started to play all day. During university, I played a lot, many, many long sessions," he confessed. "I didn't expect to be a professional poker player and work in this industry."

"I just loved to play, and then I became better, and I showed better results. Then I made the blog, and so on, and did some media stuff...I was expecting myself to work in a big company or something like that and do a normal job."

With over 15 years in the game, the 36-year-old has firmly established himself as one of Russia's greatest poker players. His live tournament earnings have exceeded $8 million, not to mention the millions he's accumulated online. Looking at those impressive figures, it's clear that the unexpected career path he stumbled upon was the right one for him after all.

$2.5 Million Haul in Jeju

Filatov first entered the Triton arena two years ago in Cyprus, and things didn't quite go as planned. That time around, he fired bullets into four tournaments and bricked in each of them. However, a $300K score in an online $10K Bounty during that series helped Filatov balance the books.

Then followed fatherhood. The birth of his first child meant that Filatov's live grind was put mostly on pause, with very few live stops played, but he couldn't pass up the opportunity to give Triton a second go when the 2025 Jeju series was announced.

Going back to Jeju was somewhat of a return to his familial roots.

"I'm half Korean from a grand, grand, grand relative... before this series, I said this is the stop I want to go to," he said, alongside not being able to pass up on some of the juicy fields that Triton can offer even though he was not at his A-game.

"I'm still not in the best shape that I could possibly be. But [At Triton], there are some players that you can beat because a lot of amateur players like to play...I think you can expect to win during this series."

After his WPT Global Slam win, Filatov cashed in the series' $30K and $50K events for $81,500 and $89,000, respectively, but a deep run in the $100K Main Event padded his bankroll with another $480,000. Despite nearly half a million going into his pockets, Filatov appeared somewhat disappointed about not being able to go further than his 11th-place finish.

"I could have put in a better performance; I made a few mistakes. I was overtired during the long series, I guess, but it is what it is."

Watch the Full Interview

Are you curious to hear more from the GPI Player of the Month? Filatov dives deeper into key topics currently shaping the poker world. He shares his thoughts on the future of online poker, his perspective on recent controversies involving ambassadors using Real-Time Assistance tools, and gives insight on how to break down hands like a true pro.